


a measure of patience

by Rynezion



Series: invisible machinery [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: (Ish) - Freeform, Canon Compliant, F/M, Getting Together, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Mutual Pining, Polyamory, Relationship Problems, follows some of the events in Denerim (especially the whole Taliesen debacle)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 23:00:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14412357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rynezion/pseuds/Rynezion
Summary: She almost walks straight into Zevran when he suddenly stops as if struck by an invisible wall. The three of them fan out behind him, Iraine reaching for her staff thinking—another band of thugs? Loghain’s mercenaries? Some other example of Denerim’s extensive underbelly?It turns out to be a single man, tall, dark skinned. He reminds her of Alistair a little bit in build and in the close crop of his hair.That’s about where the similarities stop.-In which Alistair doesn't want to be king, Zevran's past comes back wanting vengeance, and all Iraine wants is to hug a tree.





	a measure of patience

**Author's Note:**

> this monstrosity fits in neatly with [these moving parts inside of me](http://archiveofourown.https://archiveofourown.org/works/14412357/editorg/works/12750642)
> 
> for maximum dramatic effect, here's [a playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/rynez/playlist/66Xcv1g9Xi6k8cHAGM32Ig?si=PP5sNzUYSJOpLlqAnkAy-w)
> 
> for a bunch of related illustrations, here's my [art tag](http://rynezion.tumblr.com/tagged/invisible-machinery)
> 
> somebody please let Iraine rest

There aren’t enough trees in Denerim. It’s one of the first items Iraine puts down on her mental list of things she finds worthwhile knowing about the city. 

Leaning her forehead against the cold glass of her window, she finds herself thinking about Lake Calenhad and the old forest surrounding it; the noises and smells so terrifyingly unfamiliar in the first few days after leaving the Tower. It had been difficult to leave Duncan’s side at first, not because she nursed a particular fondness for the man—she couldn’t move past her shame over the circumstances of her conscription to begin getting to know him before Ostagar threw everything irreversibly off-course. It was simply that the outside world turned out to be an overwhelmingly  _ full _ place, and Duncan a somewhat familiar presence in it. 

No books could prepare her for how alive everything was outside the tower walls. 

After Kinloch Hold and Ostagar, marching through most of Ferelden beaten by sun and rain in equal measure, she unexpectedly discovered that she rather likes forests and the flat planes where the wind has beaten the grass off jagged rock, the growing, living system of shrubs and flowers and wildlife that function with little regard towards civilised society. 

In that she recognises her own desire to disappear as one individually insignificant part of some invisible machine.

 

-

 

The sun is just about rising, she thinks, when there is a noise by her door. She doesn’t think it likely to be a cause for alarm—it could be anyone; a maidservant hurrying past in the middle of her morning duties, a messenger on the way to Eamon’s study, the housekeeper, a guard. She only peeks outside to satisfy the nagging sense of paranoia she can’t quite let go of even in the relative safety of the Arl’s estate. 

Instead of a startled servant however, she opens the door to find Alistair in his shirtsleeves hovering on the cold stone corridor, shifting from one foot to the other in indecision. 

“O—oh,” he starts, caught off-guard, “Good morning. I wasn’t sure if you’d be awake.”

Iraine watches him, frozen for only a moment, then moves to let him in. He stops just a step inside the door.

They considered it unwise to share a room within the estate, in agreement for once about curious eyes watching and wary of Eamon presiding over them with indisputable authority. By this point there is hardly anything she says that doesn’t push Alistair into a petulant, unhappy silence. In that the break is as much of a win as it is a terrible, aching empty space—always five paces between them and fewer words on the good days, a careful balancing act of civility and badly concealed hurt. 

Both of them avoid mentioning Zevran outside of missions.

“You’re up early,” she remarks quietly when it becomes clear Alistair will have trouble starting without incentive. He shakes himself and attempts a smile. 

“You know what they say, early bird, worm, and so on—” he trails off. Iraine allows herself a second to reminisce over the time—before Haven, before Eamon,  _ before— _ when they didn’t need idle chat to fill the silence between them. 

There is little point in dwelling on it.

“What brings you here, Alistair?”

His expression drops immediately. 

“Eamon wants to talk after breakfast,” he says, ducking his head between his shoulders in an achingly familiar gesture of discomfort, “you and me. In his office. He instructed me to be  _ serious _ about it,” he adds sulkily. 

Iraine has a fairly good idea about what kind of conversation Eamon needs both of them present for. If the look of distress on his face is any indication, so does Alistair. 

There are times she wishes she was clever enough to make her own way through the tangle they made of Ferelden’s politics instead of having to rely on the Arl of Redcliffe; she hates the way his presence makes her companions shrink in their own skin. Yet she cannot deny that they need the benefits of Eamon’s experience, his position as a respected member of the late King’s court, his extensive knowledge about Arls, Banns, the unwritten rules of high society. His arguments are logical. His loyalty to Ferelden unquestionable. 

If only his intervention didn’t leave them all so unexpectedly off balance.

“All right,” Iraine says with a smile she hopes looks calm and confident instead of tired and vaguely despairing like she feels right then, skin itching with the need to get  _ away,  _ “I will see you at the dining hall.” 

She ignores Alistair’s hopeful glance with only a vague feeling of guilt. 

Sharing words of reassurance when they both know what ground they stand on would be unnecessarily cruel. 

Instead she moves to open the door again, a clear indication of dismissal he takes with visible relief; then shuts it with a deliberate  _ click _ without giving in to the temptation of watching him disappear down the stairs, framed by soft morning light.

_ What a moment to be proud of. _

She allows herself a minute to entertain the fantasy of walking out of the estate, through the market district and the two sets of gates until reaching the ring of woodland surrounding the farms outside the city. She could bury herself under the roots of a tree until she can be sure nobody would find her for a good few decades at least. 

Maybe then she could finally sleep. 

 

-

 

There is definitely something to be said for Alistair’s resilience in opposing Eamon’s arguments for making him king. After spending breakfast sitting on the edge of his seat looking decidedly green, he continues his persistent campaign for finding a more suitable candidate for the throne with stubborn confidence. He almost succeeds in masking his fear, even. 

Isn’t it ironic, she wonders, that his overwhelming fear of his own incompetence and his determination to find someone who will do well by his people is what would eventually make him, if not an especially talented ruler, at least a responsible one?

She feels sick looking away when he glances at her for support. 

Not for the first time, she has to grit her teeth against demanding answers from Eamon—is the good of the nation really is worth someone’s unhappiness, should what Alistair wants truly amount for nothing in the end? But the two of them are already over that conversation. The Arl made it abundantly clear what he thought of her _childlike idealism_ in the same impeccably civil tone he invited visiting Banns to dinner, and the burning shame of it still makes her tongue-tied. 

How could she reason with him, when all her careful research and long nights spent arguing with herself have brought her to the exact same conclusion? How could she disregard his counsel, when her reasons to look for other options are entirely selfish?

It’s a trap, an especially cruel one—clever springs coiled tight by politics, teeth poisoned by foolish sentiment. 

It takes more than an hour after Alistair is dismissed until she can finally excuse herself. The Arl waves her off with a benevolent smile that makes her want to scream, hide, take an hour to shake through the waves of nausea coming over her until her forehead isn’t damp with cold sweat anymore. 

Leaning against the wall just past the corner from the study she firmly reminds herself that Arl Eamon is a _ good man.  _ They at least share something in their determination to protect what’s important to them, in taking on the thankless task of making decisions that are both hard and necessary. 

The Arl’s relentless perseverance will serve their cause well. 

In any case, Iraine reasons as she pushes off the wall and walks up the winding corridors of the estate towards her quarters; she has every reason to be satisfied. Proud, even. Their plans to take action against Loghain and secure Ferelden before the Blight hits in earnest are finally taking shape. She utilised the treaties they’ve been entrusted with to the best of her ability. They survived Orzammar, Redcliffe, Haven, Ostagar. 

Kinloch. 

She doesn’t allow herself think too hard about Alistair, Zevran, the complicated tightrope-walk of feelings and slow negotiation, the intricate mechanism of understanding each other’s language that fell apart in front of her eyes from one day to the next. 

_ I need some air,  _ she decides when she finally opens the door to her rooms, takes a moment to stare bracingly at the distorted image of the grey sky over chimneys and rooftops broken to pieces by the small glass panes of her window; then grabs her staff, buckles the shortsword on her belt and turns to round up her companions in the hope of persuading them to seek out one of Denerim’s home-grown mercenary bands to fill a contract for the city guard. 

 

-

 

Iraine finds Alistair and Zevran sitting close together over the remnants of an early lunch. Zevran is busy describing something that sounds like a complicated and decidedly Antivan dish, getting lost in the details of spices and flavours and the rapt attention on Alistair’s face. She cannot blame him, for the expression is disarming and she knows from experience that  Alistair’s proximity is something rather easy to get caught up in. 

Neither of them notice her leaning against the doorframe. 

She never thought about it until Alistair’s confession. Her love, at the time, was a childish sentiment; part of a complicated legacy left by the Chantry and their strong discouragement of relationships within Circles of Magi. One can know the ins and outs of principles within the School of Entropy without realising that being in love isn’t necessarily as simple as observing the objects of one’s affection with warmth and feeling content with it. 

In the end it was Leliana who, after a long night spent crouching on a fallen tree trunk, listening to all her guilty secrets spill out in the silence, finally asked:  _ “Have you thought about… talking to them?”  _

She hasn’t.

The most surprising part wasn’t even in the details of Leliana’s fast-track education in the practicalities of romance and attraction, although that isn’t a lecture she will forget anytime soon. It was Alistair, who instead of exploding in a fit of jealous anger as she dreaded he would, blushed and ducked his head between his shoulders mumbling something about Templar training and him having eyes in his head.

It was a strange conversation. 

Arl Eamon’s recovery and the subsequent political upheaval threw quite a wrench in their plans to follow through, of course. 

Iraine takes another moment to observe the two blonde heads tucked close in deep conversation, then clears her throat and watches with a pang of sadness as Zevran leans back quick as if struck, expression carefully blank. 

“Would you care for a walk in town?” she asks. “There is a contract out for some back alley troublemakers and we could use the coin.”

Zevran rises to his feet with graceful ease.

“Allow me to collect my gear,” he says as he moves, looking almost relieved to put some distance between them, passing by her carefully without touching. 

When was the last time he looked her straight in the eye? When was the last time they talked, one friend to another? She grits her teeth. Zevran’s futile guilt, Alistair’s thick skull, the terrible timing of the course of history. When will she get a moment of peace to spend it figuring out this mess between them, within her own head? 

Maybe in ten years’ time, if they survive for that long. 

She glances at Alistair studying the stacks of plates as if the answers to his most burning questions were somehow written between the crumbs and bits of cheese, heaves a sigh, then turns on her heels to leave.

“I’ll be waiting by the entrance,” she says quietly.

He doesn't stop her. 

She cannot begrudge him his resentment over being abandoned to his kingship, yet his sullen silence grates at her nerves and she feels herself growing angry. What would any of them do in her place? There is no path she can see that leads to all of them living the rest of their lives in peace once the Blight is over. No life in which they get to slip back into the crowd, disappearing under the comfortable guise of obscurity again.

Maybe some of her companions will get to have peace after their fight is done, she muses, revelling with childish glee in the sharp noise her heels make on the stone tiles; but not him. Not her either, for that matter. 

In moments like these she finds herself yearning desperately to be back in the Circle. 

It isn’t that she misses the Templars and the scrutiny, the sanctimonious preaching that keeps mages well and truly shackled by their belief in their own worthlessness. But the perils of being a Circle mage are at least predictable, a familiar evil, a position in which she wouldn’t be expected to perform political miracles and decide the fates of those she cares for the most.

Irwing said that becoming a Grey Warden was an honour, and she would do well as one of them. Now that all but the two of them are dead, she can’t help but think being a Grey Warden isn’t much more than fighting an uphill battle in a world that doesn’t want them and makes kings out of the unwilling. 

Leliana’s room is at least close. She looks up from mending a leather arm guard and searches Iraine’s eyes before reaching for her quiver of arrows without a word. 

 

-

 

The contract takes them well into the uninviting web of alleyways that surround the market district and noble estates like a thornbush. Children are running barefoot around haggard looking women and men going about their business, expressions dark as they turn toward them—she long since learned to ignore the sideways glances and murmurs of ‘knife-ear’ and other, more creative insults; ordinary bullies and cutpurses know to stay well away from groups like hers and it’s not like she hasn’t heard it all in the Circle dormitories and on the road already. A good blade is as good a repellent as it comes anyway.

Apart from the idle chatter between Zevran and Leliana, the walk is a sullen, quiet affair.

They find the mercenaries crowding around a makeshift marketplace pressed tight in a space left empty by some houses being torn down some time ago. It seems they arrived just on time. One of the men is holding a woman by the arms while another occupies himself by rooting through the contents of her stall, careless of glass jars breaking and produce rolling in the mud. The merchant’s frantic cries go largely ignored. 

Leliana predictably pushes ahead, furious. “Hey!” she shouts, arrow aimed at the man struggling to keep hold of the woman who renews her efforts in kicking and cursing at the sight of them. The mercenaries turn in their direction almost as one.

It’s a familiar bunch. Iraine, Sten and Wynne booted some of them out of The Pearl not four days ago; recognition seems to dawn on the rowdy band of men and women in time with swords and daggers flying out of their scabbards and the angry cries of warriors nursing the indignity of being beaten by an old woman, an elven girl and an ox-man using largely tavern furniture and some clever placement of ice barriers.

“Try not to kill them, if you can avoid it,” warns Iraine unhooking her staff. Zevran’s answering laugh soon gets lost in the noise of metal hitting metal. 

The scuffle is over in a laughably short time. 

They wait until a patrol from the City Guard appears to carry off the injured and move the few bodies to the Chantry courtyard. The occupants of the surrounding houses and those milling around the marketplace seem entirely unfazed by the violence—it must be frequent enough in peacetime, and especially so now with soldiers looking to blow off steam and the other, less savory inhabitants of the streets crawling into daylight to look for opportunity in the chaos wartime yields. Iraine moves to make sure the merchant woman is unharmed, but gets only some carefully selected curses for her trouble. 

“Charming, no?” Zevran says.

“Quite,” she replies, looking up as he falls in step beside her, carefully staying an arm’s reach away. Her heart twists in exasperation. Still—conversation, willingly offered? She’ll take what she can get.

“Nobody seems especially happy to be rid of them,” she adds, gesturing in the direction of the mercenaries and city guards preparing to embark on their journey back to the market district where their fates will be decided. Zevran makes a thoughtful noise.

“It is hard when they know somebody else will come and take their place tomorrow,” he says. “That is the nature of living in places like this, you see. There is always somebody willing to flash a blade at you in broad daylight, for whatever reason that may be. Sometimes the evil you know is simply better than waiting if the next one might turn out worse.”

Iraine considers her illogical desire to return to the Tower with its almost ordinary pitfalls. She supposes Zevran must know something about fear of changing circumstances too, if only considering the case of their first encounter and how he deliberately avoids any mention of the Crows that goes beyond accounts of his glamorous adventures as one of them. Strange how quickly an act of kindness can be twisted into something rotten, she thinks, as the stab of guilt twists her gut into a familiar knot. 

Zevran must sense something of it, because stops and looks at her with a look of alarm. 

“I did not mean to say that I think what we do is useless,” he frowns, then continues, ”I would not describe myself as an avid idealist under the best of circumstances, but I believe standing up for the people who cannot think to defend themselves will leave them better off, eventually. You see…” he trails off, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, “You see, for whom life is often a struggle, it can be liberating to know somebody finds them worth saving, on occasion. Maybe not a practical benefit, but a more… metaphorical one.” His gaze cuts to her and away. She realises she is supposed to recognise some sort of double meaning, another one of Zevran’s admissions of truth carefully packaged into inconsequential conversation. He continues before she can stop to think about it.

“All I’m saying is that you might get cursed at by people who do not know better  _ now _ , but later when they think to stand up for themselves because someone once stood up  _ for  _ them, your actions will earn their worth. It just requires… a measure of patience.”

“Patience,” Iraine repeats. She almost laughs out loud. “I’ve been thinking about patience a lot these days,” she murmurs, glancing from Zevran to Alistair pointedly looking in the other direction.

Iraine shakes herself and stifles the urge to touch Zevran’s arm, cursing the complications of love and politics that spoiled so many simple gestures of friendship between them. 

“We better get going,” she says instead, “I want to speak to the Guard Captain first, and I bet Arl Eamon has something important to discuss that will last until morning if we don’t hurry.”

Zevran lets her pass with a smile. She rounds up Leliana counting her arrows and Alistair, waiting patiently with his helmet still clutched under one arm. He gives her a measuring look, but doesn’t say a word as they turn back down the alleyway towards the market district. 

 

-

 

In retrospect, she should have seen it coming.

She almost walks straight into Zevran when he suddenly stops as if struck by an invisible wall. The three of them fan out behind him, Iraine reaching for her staff thinking—another band of thugs? Loghain’s mercenaries? Some other example of Denerim’s extensive underbelly?

It turns out to be a single man, tall, dark skinned. He reminds her of Alistair a little bit in build and in the close crop of his hair.

That’s about where the similarities stop. 

“And so here are the mighty Grey Wardens at long last,” the stranger says, and she can see Zevran pulling himself ramrod straight, fingers flexing by his side. “The Crows send their regards, once again.”

Iraine can feel her limbs go numb with dread and furious anticipation. She moves to stand by Zevran’s side without really thinking, staff clutched tightly in one hand and the other on her sword hilt as if she could protect him from what the man leaning on the ramp railing has come for by  _ posturing _ like some warrior. She scoffs at herself in the privacy of her mind.

“Taliesen,” Zevran drawls. Glancing at him, Iraine is startled to see him—of all things— _ amused.  _ “Tell me, were you sent? Or did you volunteer for the job?”

The Crow laughs and rests his hands on his hips in a gesture of utmost self-confidence. The look on his face makes her want to hit him. Hard. 

“I volunteered, of course,” he says, ”when I heard of you,  _ you  _ of all people, going rogue, I simply couldn’t pass up the opportunity. It’s been a long time.”

“Too long, perhaps.” Zevran smiles sharply. It looks false. It feels false. The whole situation makes Iraine’s scalp tingle. 

“What do you want?” she turns to the man, back straight and her voice adopting a well-practiced air of authority. “What do you want from him?”

“Oh, I don’t want anything  _ from _ him,” Taliesen says pleasantly, “I’m simply here to bring him home. Our Master misses you, Zevran.”

The low noise Zevran makes could be anything—agreement, denial, longing. His face looks as if it’s made of stone. 

“It’s not too late, you know,” the Crow continues, “Everybody makes mistakes. Come back now and it will all be forgiven. You can have your family back! Wouldn’t that be something?” he trails off, his smile blinding, “You and me, together again. Come home with me, Zevran.” 

Zevran glances at her, muscles shifting in anticipation of movement. Forward? Backward? Her palms are slippery with sweat. 

Iraine isn’t scared of the Crow overwhelming them—a fight, she can handle. In a fight it’s easier to tell who to protect and who to kill. The roots of her fear rest with Zevran; in his efforts to covertly keep himself always one step outside the group, his teasing that hides at least as many rotten things as her silence does, his homesickness, his desire to belong somewhere she understands all too well. 

“Zev,” she says quietly. 

His smile is sharp as a knife’s edge. There is a glint of metal between his fingers, the dagger deathly still in his hand even though his shoulders are shaking. Behind them a clattering noise betrays Alistair moving closer.

Zevran looks her square in the eyes as he launches his dagger in Taliesen’s direction. 

“ _ You, _ ” the Crow grunts through gritted teeth, “oh you naive, naive man, how fast you have fallen with the  _ wrong side again. _ ”

Suddenly there are men everywhere, bursting through doors and alleyway openings until they have them almost completely surrounded. She casts a quick, measuring glance around—about twenty, well-armed. Crows? Mercenaries? It’s hard to tell. Her mind races to assess options for maneuvering the limited space with the most efficiency. 

A fight with no muddled allegiances standing between them. She reaches for the Fade with a sigh of relief. 

The four of them fall into position like they have hundreds of times before. The pulse of magic is pulling on her mind and the smell of wet soil and rotting leaves fills her nose as she pushes into its current with familiar ease, relying on the others to keep the brunt of immediate danger away from her as her attention turns inward—it’s a careful balancing act, combat as a mage of her class. She feels her magic as threads of a spiderweb reaching out from her mind: currents of healing, ambient mana absorption and the low humming power of Entropy weakening the enemy in a delicate process of slow decay. 

The taste of her first lyrium potion burns the back of her throat. These men aren’t ordinary Denerim bullies, and every mage’s mana pool is finite. 

She barely finishes trapping the archers perched on the high ground in a cage of twisting vines before she is suddenly pushed off balance by a hard shove, Zevran cursing as they collide and Taliesen’s shortsword slips off his arm guard, twists to the side and misses Iraine’s left ear by inches. She turns to block the next strike with her staff. The reinforced metal sings with the force of the blow. 

Taliesen sets a relentless pace. Zevran is quickly cut off from her by at least four men towering around him—no hope of quick reinforcements then, she thinks, as she moves back to cast twice in quick succession: one spell for protection. One to disorient her opponent. 

The Crow falters, but recovers quickly. 

Too quickly. 

_ Oh no.  _

He seems barely shaken by the spell and she suddenly realises she missed it: a dissonance in the air, a low hum coming from—an amulet? A ring? He is certainly equipped by at least one item that cancels out a large chunk of her spellpower and his group managed to methodically isolate her from the others; she grits her teeth in frustration and wishes for a second of respite to  _ think _ . 

“What—has he been— _ doing  _ the last time?” Taliesen grins at her between strikes. She  _ could _ reach for combat magic, but nothing drains mana faster than spell enhanced physical combat and she is uncertain if the risk is worth it. Her usual method of subtlety is not going to cut it this time.

She will have to go on the offensive.

“This is—nothing! You,” Taliesen shoves her hard and she almost loses her balance on the damp cobblestones, “ _ you _ , are nothing!”

The chunks of solid ice and stone she rips from the ground slow the Crow down somewhat, yet she cannot seem to gain enough distance. She is already bleeding from what feels like a hundred bruises and cuts, some of them deep enough to make her sacrifice precious time to reach for the nearest unprotected living body and suck them dry to heal herself. 

Never in her life did she regret more not choosing to study forms of magic more suited to one-on-one combat.

Taliesen suddenly switches his short blade from one hand to the other and slashes down in an angle. She is too slow to move away. Her staff clatters on the cobblestones and disappears under the feet of men wrestling with Alistair. 

The Crow’s self-satisfied grin makes her want to scream. 

She needs  _ time _ . Her swordwork is useless without arcane support and she is almost completely dry, mana seeping out of her like water through a sieve to supply the current of shielding and reinforcements keeping the others alive. It’s not nearly enough. She needs a potion and doesn’t have time to get one. The Fade hovers on the edge of her awareness, the shape of combat magic right  _ there,  _ but she doesn’t have enough left to reach for it. 

Leliana yells something from behind her. There is no time to look. Iraine reaches for her sword belt with her good hand and lifts the short blade, shaking from the effort it takes; Taliesen is circling her in a playful, ever shrinking pattern eerily similar to how she’s seen Zevran fight many times before. 

One strike. 

She blocks. 

Another. This time the dagger slices into the flesh of her upper arm and she recoils, yelping in surprise. 

The last reserves of her mana pool rush out of her and she loses touch with her spiderweb of spells. 

Somewhere behind her Alistair lets out a surprised shout, and her stomach clenches in fear.

_ We will  _ not _ die here. _

She feints to the left and strikes with a surge of desperation, feet following the drills Alistair put her through not two months ago; hits and hits again with a force she didn’t think herself capable of under ordinary circumstances. Her sword draws a broad arch in the air.

But the Crow, instead of stepping away as she expects, suddenly moves in close. He blocks her arm with a gloved hand and hits her hard enough with the other to send her sword flying out of her numb fingers.

_ No. _

She’s on her knees, Taliesen advancing with a predatory gleam in his eyes, daggers in each hand. She scrambles for something, anything—

Taliesen reels back from the sudden momentum of two arrows digging into his shoulder. He staggers backwards. Leliana plants her feet next to her, another arrow already notched on her bow as she turns to aim at something behind her. The noise of clattering armour draws closer and closer. 

No time. Iraine digs a vial out of her belt pouch with shaking fingers and swallows the taste of rust and mud and lakewater, the lyrium burning her throat like acid. 

She shudders with relief as her connection with the Fade comes rushing back. 

It’s easy then, to swoop forward and grab the Crow’s throat with both hands, riding the heady wave of the lyrium rush and her terrible, terrible anger—Zevran, the blades and words that cut and bruise, Taliesen’s smug condescension,  _ Antiva _ —and she pushes a sickly purple mass of magic inside him and lets him go.

He looks dazed for a second, and then the spell finishes knitting itself to his blood and rips him apart from the inside out. 

Behind the gory mess of his collapsing body, she catches a glimpse of Zevran standing still, staring at her with glassy eyes. 

 

-

 

Iraine knows almost all there is to know about the functionality of death. 

A process of change. A disintegration of self, decomposition of flesh, every part finding new use while becoming one with the soil and water feeding the rest of the system surrounding it. 

The carnage around them isn’t enough to shake her anymore. They have killed plenty in their time since Ostagar and not only monsters crawling from under the earth, not even only monsters of the human kind. Innocents on the other side of the war. People turning to violence to make ends meet. Men surviving through the misfortune of others.

Watching Zevran crouch by what remains of Taliesen’s body fills her with the cold realisation of how indifferent she became to the meaning of death. 

A disintegration of  _ self.  _

She understands well the way a person can feel, against all reason, love for those who hurt them most; for love is rarely sensible. Growing up in the Circle and tied to the Crows isn’t much different that way. Now, with the possibility of reconciliation dead with Taliesen, she is unsure what Zevran will do. 

“Warden,” he says, voice strained, when she kneels beside him in the dirt. She swallows the lump of guilt in her throat and hides her useless, shaking hands in the folds of her robe. 

“I’m sorry,” she says and immediately winces at the sheer inadequacy of the statement. Zevran quirks his eyebrows in question. “About Taliesen,” she elaborates, “it’s—”

“It is Crow business, a pit of snakes by nature,” he interrupts, giving her a flat smile. “Taliesen was asking for trouble and he knew it. He made his decision.”

Iraine suspects the matter at hand is a lot more complicated than what he attempts to show. Family, death, blurring lines and alliances. A pit of snakes is a fitting description. Yet when she inhales to speak again, he cuts her off. 

“It matters not. We better hurry now—none of us is in good shape to be caught milling around these parts for too long, no?” It’s phrased as a question, but his refusal to look at her is as clear a message as any blunt dismissal. She wants so badly to touch him, to squeeze his shoulder in reassurance, do—something, anything. But her hands are instruments of grief. Regardless of decisions made and allegiances shifted, she has killed somebody of significance to him and there is nothing else to it. 

She nods her assent and pushes to her feet. 

_ Cannot let go yet,  _ she thinks, shaking herself out of an odd sense of vertigo,  _ there is much to do still. _

Alistair sits leaning against the bottom pillar of the ramp railing with his eyes closed. Leliana managed to strip him of the heavy reinforced leather and metal pieces of his chest armour; exposing a landscape of quickly darkening bruises, a shallow gash on his neck and another one at his hip which is significantly deeper and quickly losing blood. The cost of her miscalculation. 

She crouches by his side, puts a hand on his shoulder to alert him to her presence and he cracks one eye open with a smile. 

“’M fine,” he mutters. “I can walk.”

“Nonsense,” snaps Leliana from above. Iraine huffs a laugh and pries the last bottle of lyrium out of her belt pouch, followed by a meagre supply of elfroot salve and some bandages.

“It’s not much, but it will hold until we get you to Wynne. Stop squirming,” she warns, when Alistair attempts to sit up straight. 

“I’m  _ fine _ ,” he repeats stubbornly. Iraine pays him no mind as she downs the potion, grimaces at the sharp sting of pain in her throat and reaches for a poultice. 

Two and a half jars of sour smelling salve and a weak wash of healing magic later Alistair stands up without help, steady enough if still drowsy from blood loss and exhaustion. He reaches for the pillar for support.

“All right?” Iraine inquires gently. He squints down at her. A look of misery, then defeat crosses his face. 

_ How strange.  _

“Alistair? Is everything all—”

She suddenly finds herself yanked forward, body hitting hastily replaced leathers and head tucked firmly under Alistair’s chin by an unsteady hand. 

“Don’t ever do that again. Please,” he says.

“I’m sorry,” her voice is thin. Alistair’s arms clutch her tight and she finds it suddenly difficult to breathe. “I hesitated and ran out of mana. Dropped the heal. It was irresponsible of me.”

“No,” he grumbles into the top of her head, “not that. I thought—when you disappeared, I thought something happened. Something—bad. Worse. Don’t do it again,” he repeats firmly. She feels the air leaving her lungs faster than she can draw it in. It’s the warmth, the closeness, it’s the  _ time,  _ it’s been so long since—

“Zevran? Where are you going?” calls Leliana from behind, and the two of them jerk apart to look. Zevran is already well on his way towards one of the arched alleyway openings leading back to the outskirts of the city. 

Iraine lets go of Alistair and takes a hesitant step forward. Zevran glances over his shoulder. His attempt at a cheerful smile tears at the knot of guilt and affection in her stomach. 

“My apologies,” he says, “It suddenly occurs to me that I have some business to attend—elsewhere. I shall catch up with you!”

Stomach sinking, she lurches towards him. Is this it? Will he—? Is this  _ it _ ?

“Zevran,” she calls after him.

“We shall speak later, my dear Warden,” he replies with a tight smile, then disappears under the archway without another word. Her fingers are going numb. 

This is it. 

She murdered someone he cared for, he is overcome by grief, he will go back to Antiva for the Crows to do whatever they please with him and there is nothing she can  _ do _ , he’ll leave unless—she moves again without thinking, only following the instinct to catch up, to beg, to hold him back physically if necessary— _ if only I _ —but a hand on her shoulder stops her after only a couple of steps. 

“Stop. Give him some time,” Leliana offers a kind, but stern smile. “He will come back.”

A breath rushes out of her in a doubtful  _ ‘Hah.’ _ Still, the firm grip on her shoulder is anchoring and Iraine attempts to compose herself. “Do you really believe that?” 

“I  _ believe  _ right now what Zevran needs is space. Aren’t you rather good at being patient, normally?” 

“I don’t _normally_ murder my companions’ friends in spectacularly cruel ways! Normally—” Iraine pauses, mouth twisting into a frown. She’s shouting. She _never_ shouts. “He will leave. He will leave and I cannot even blame him for it.”

Leliana makes a thoughtful noise. 

“He might. He might not. You have no idea what’s really going on inside his head, do you?”

“I—”

“You Circle mages like to think you are all-seeing, sometimes. Comes with that awful place, I suppose,” Leliana adds, not without sympathy. “Either way, there is nothing you can do right now to help make up his mind. Alistair, on the other hand, needs assistance and a proper healer who  _ isn’t  _ drained and slightly high on lyrium.” 

Iraine swallows the sting of the comment and pauses to take inventory—nausea, raw throat, head that feels like it’s filled with water; an assortment of superficial scratches and cuts that are shallow enough not to warrant immediate attention. Alistair is leaning against the pillar again, hand gingerly hovering over the wound on his hip. 

“All right,” she says quietly, “all right.”

Leliana gives her shoulder a reassuring squeeze and they turn to Alistair, each of them taking one of his arms for support; and start their slow, limping return to the Arl’s estate. 

It’s luck—or possibly divine intervention, if Leliana’s frequent swearing is anything to go by—but they make it back to the market district without further trouble. Iraine even succeeds in diverting the brunt of Wynne’s fussing in Alistair’s direction. Her stomach lurches unpleasantly at the grimace he throws her over Leliana’s shoulder; but, for better or worse, the gesture misses its usual resentful edge. 

She excuses herself as soon as she can.

The urgency to  _ move _ burns under her skin until her hands start shaking and her forehead breaks out in cold sweat, a string of familiar warning signs.  _ I pushed too hard,  _ she thinks as she sinks to the floor in her quarters. Leaning her face against cool stone at least comes with a measure of relief. She tries focusing on the press of her body against it instead of the towering promise of pain that grips her tight.

_ Take your mind off it. _

But searching her careening thoughts through the wave of nausea is like counting starlings in the fall. Eamon, the throne, Alistair, the fight with Taliesen. The memory of reaching for the Fade and finding nothing but hollow chambers empty of power. The clear image of Zevran’s face from across the street, jaw slack and eyes wide in horror, burned into the skin of her eyelid to see every time she so much as blinks. The pain is a persistent build of fire that scours every vein and artery in her body, arching like branches of a tree.

She is unable to stop the shaky, gulping breaths that echo in the empty chamber until the flood reaches its peak, extends outwards and upwards, then recedes into a hollow echo that settles into her joints and muscles as a faint leftover ache. 

Then it builds again.

Again.

Again.

Mana exhaustion is a sly beast that hits with a cruel delay and leaves its echo in one’s body as a gift to suffer for days and days and days.

“You did this to yourself,” she says out loud to the empty room. 

There is no reply. 

Leaning her sore head against the wall she forces herself to think. There is still much to do. 

_ Search for elfroot. _

_ Check on Alistair. _

_ Make sure Zevran has returned, send someone after him if he hasn’t.  _

_ Talk to the Guard-Captain.  _

_ Avoid Eamon. _

As she moves carefully down the imaginary points one by one, she feels some of the tension leave her shoulders and her hands regain some feeling. The hollow ache in her joints will not pass for the next considerable while.

_ One task at a time,  _ she thinks as she grabs for the windowsill and pulls herself to her feet. 

Action at least takes her mind off it.  

She wishes she could find somewhere to pick fresh elfroot from, to discard her boots and stick her feet in the mud for a little while. Eamon’s garden is paved with cobblestones. Besides, she huffs a rather dejected laugh; it’s unlikely he would appreciate the image the leader of Ferelden’s Grey Wardens would present, barefoot, wishing she could grow roots like a tree—he would likely call in undignified. 

Instead she raids Wynne’s stores for some of the dried stuff and fills an empty waterskin at the kitchen pump under the housekeeper’s watchful eyes. The green taste of elfroot-infused water is the same regardless of the form it comes in. 

Finding Alistair awake is a surprise. 

“Oh,” she starts and moves to leave, but the aborted motion of his hand stops her in her tracks. “Sorry,” she says, uncertain. 

Alistair, at least, looks just as taken aback as she feels. 

“Maker, this is awkward,” he mutters. She hovers hesitantly halfway between his bed and the door. 

They stare at each other, wordless.

In the end, it’s the smile that does it—the smile she recognises from the day they first met, crooked and a touch self-deprecating, eyebrows quirking upwards as he shrugs and ducks his head between his shoulders, eyes warm, warm, warm.  _ Blast it _ . She chokes on a laugh that turns into a sob halfway through and hides her face behind her aching hands. 

“Oh no,” Alistair scrambles, legs tangled into the blankets in his haste to rush toward her, “Oh no, no, no, no. Was it something I said? Oh you  _ buffoon _ …,” he sputters as he yanks himself free and Iraine can’t help another laugh that escapes between the rhythm of shallow breaths, held upright by his hands on her shoulder, cupping her face, stroking her hair. 

How many times does that make, she wonders briefly as she allows herself to be enveloped in a tight embrace and laughs into Alistair’s shoulder for a little while with a measure of relief.  _ Today is full of sinking to floors and other hysterics, it looks like.  _

Alistair eventually settles for petting her back in slow, measured motions—it’s rather wonderful, Iraine thinks, after being deprived of his touch for so long. It’s something he gives so easily, one doesn’t notice its power until it’s gone. The warmth, his solid weight, his arms; it’s almost,  _ almost  _ perfect.

Except for…

Zevran. Eamon. The blasted,  _ blasted  _ throne of Ferelden.

“Maker,” she mutters and carefully extricates herself. 

Some of the stiffness from the earlier weeks comes crawling back. 

“How is your hip?” she asks, for lack of anything better to fill the sudden silence with. He steps backwards, arms still half-extended in her direction.

“Umm—well, I think? Wynne is terrifying and efficient as always.” 

They settle down, Alistair sitting on the bed with his back against the wall, Iraine in the armchair opposite. They share a shaky smile. 

Iraine finds herself unsure how to navigate this new, fragile peace between them.

“Are  _ you _ well?” Alistair asks in turn, then winces. His gaze measures her from head to toe, taking inventory. What is it he sees, she wonders; bruises and bloodshot eyes? Hair matted by sweat? Echoes of pain? “You don’t  _ look  _ well,” he adds softly. 

“Tired,” she replies with a smile she hopes looks at least reassuring. “It’s been some time since I last drained myself this much. A rather amateur mistake.” 

“It was likely on purpose, separating you like that. A surprisingly good strategy,” he adds with a heavy swallow.

She hums her agreement. Beside tormenting Zevran, Taliesen’s obvious primary goal was to finish what he started in the first place; filling Loghain’s contract of eradicating the last two Warden witnesses of Ostagar at last. He was well-prepared to carry it out, too—the memory of the magic defense amulet’s dissonant hum still makes her skin crawl. Only luck prevented Taliesen from being successful.

Luck, and her own jealous, bitter rage. 

“It will take me some time to recover,” she frowns, “Eamon won’t be happy. Going on missions will be risky for a while.”

“Does that mean we get to take a holiday?”

“Hah!” They share a look of weary amusement, warm for what feels like the first time in months. The silence stretches comfortably between them.

In the end it’s Alistair who breaks it. 

“Listen,” he starts, pauses, looks at the ceiling with a swallow. “I just wanted to say— I’ve been acting rather like a shit lately and—” he tilts his head, eyes turning to search hers, “I know it’s not your fault. It’s not anybody’s, really. I’m sorry.”

Iraine thinks it’s really rather too soon to start crying again. 

“Maker,” she sighs, “we both did a great job of messing things up between us, don’t you think?’”

“You, as always, are frighteningly competent,” he points out rather accusingly. “I wish I was capable of making half the decisions you do every day.” 

Iraine’s laugh is as surprised as it is bitter.

“ _ I  _ wish I didn’t have to make the people I care about give in to things they might not wish for themselves. It makes me sick.”

Alistair knocks his head back against the wall and sighs.

“Sometimes it’s easy to forget that things are just as difficult for you as it is for the rest of us,” he says softly. “You—you really do seem more than an ordinary human sometimes.”

“Considering I’m not really human at all, that’s really quite curious,” she replies, amused, and he straightens, face flushing. 

“That’s—that’s  _ really  _ not what I meant, I’m so—”

“Alistair.”

“Yes!”

“I know.”

“G-good.”

They fall into silence again, but this time it’s heavy with— _ something,  _ a hot tension that makes it hard to swallow. Alistair’s eyes glitter in the glow of the fire. 

“Listen—” she starts.

She doesn’t get to continue. There is an urgent rap on the door, and a rather harried looking footman opens it almost immediately, seeking out the first figure of authority in the room he can find. 

“Ser,” he turns to Alistair, “your friend, the elf has appeared in—a  _ state  _ and he is causing quite a ruckus. He broke into the kitchen and bullied the scullery maid into giving him a key to the cellar. She is rather startled,” he adds for emphasis. 

Alistair and Iraine share a look of part-alarm, part-relief. 

The footman’s indignant cry as they push past him gets lost in the noise Iraine’s heels make on the stone floor. 

 

-

 

Zevran is, undoubtedly, in a  _ state.  _ A state well past drunken cheer and teetering somewhere on the edge of consciousness, which somehow still doesn’t stop him from taking unsteady sips from the bottle of brandy he appropriated from the estate’s cellar not too long ago. He looks up at the two of them with unsettling intensity.

“Ah,” he says, then stops. Blinks. “Y’two are together again. Kiss and make up?” he inquires cheerfully as Iraine leans in to take the bottle away from him. Despite his obvious state, dazed and reeking of cheap ale and whatever else as he sprawls in the armchair by the fire, his words are surprisingly clear.

“Bed?” Iraine asks Alistair, who shrugs, uncertain.

“Water first, maybe,” he suggests. It’s a sensible idea. There is a pitcher on the shelf by the window that is still half-full—Iraine pours a generous amount into a cup and hands it to Zevran who frowns at it in disgust. 

“Just a few sips,” she crouches by the chair with some difficulty and smiles at him in encouragement. “Please.” His expression softens and he obediently takes a few shallow mouthfuls.

Alistair kneels beside her and the two of them rid Zevran of his stiff leather boots, complete with the daggers he keeps buckled above his ankles. Four altogether. Small ones. She sighs and searches him for the rest. 

They make a tidy pile on the floor.

“Ready?” she asks Alistair once Zevran is stripped all the way to trousers and nothing else. He observes the two of them wordlessly through half-lidded eyes.

Alistair rakes his fingers through his hair and heaves a sigh.

“Might as well.”

He hauls Zevran’s limp body in his arms with only a grunt and a slight wobble. They make a compelling image, both of them framed by candlelight, brown and gold on gold, Zevran’s head tucked into the space between Alistair’s shoulder and chin. 

Her heart skips a beat. Under any other circumstances—

Alas, circumstances at present are less than ideal. She pushes the sentiment away with a brief clench of fingers. 

Alistair lays Zevran down on the bed as gently as he is able, maneuvering the considerable weight of a well-muscled assassin in a state of complete helplessness onto the lumpy mattress. Zevran burrows into the blankets without complaint and appears to drift off almost immediately. 

Iraine leans against the wall, dizzy with exhaustion. The two of them share a weary look. 

There is nothing else left to do. 

“My quarters are closer,” Alistair remarks quietly. She blinks up at him—he’s looking down at Zevran curled up in a tight ball of muscle and long limbs, face drawn tight with something halfway between exasperation and longing. 

Much like she feels, she supposes.

She takes his hand, fingers curling into a tight hold around one another. “Let’s go,” she says with a small smile. If he notices her leaning on him more than usual as they step towards the door, he doesn’t comment.

Her bones and creaking joints ache for rest. 

But as soon as Iraine turns and reaches for the handle to pull the door shut behind her, a rustle of sheets and a soft noise of discontent hit her ears from the other side. 

“Iraine? A—Alistair—?”

The two of them look at each other in alarm. 

Into the quiet, clearly not expecting to be heard, Zevran mutters: “Don’t leave,” and then, in a voice fragile like glass, “I don’t want to be alone.” 

He pulls her in immediately as soon as reaches the edge of his bed, grip tight like iron around her waist. She rubs her hand on the back of his head in a soothing gesture.  

“We’re here. It’s all right.” 

She can hear Alistair’s heavy footsteps moving around the room, the scrape of the armchair dragged close. 

“Iraine,” Zevran’s eyes are only glinting, golden slits in the low light. 

“You can sleep now,” she says.

“I can’t.”

“You can’t? How so?”

“Dreams.”

She only sighs and tucks him closer, letting his head rest in the space between her neck and shoulder. 

“Taliesen’s dead,” he whispers. 

Her stomach drops.

Spine rigid, she readies herself to leave— _ run, hide, don’t look back.  _ The guilt festering in her gut fills her body with ice. But Zevran only grips her tighter.

“I’m glad,” he mutters into her collarbone, heaves a deep sigh, then falls asleep.  

 

-

 

She cannot say what wakes her. 

It takes her a paralysing moment to remember where she is and what she’s doing here—an unfamiliar room, pre-dawn light seeping through the window, the presence of _people_ all around her. She opens her eyes to the sight of Zevran’s shoulder blocking most of her vision. Between the curve of his neck and jaw she can see familiar dark-blonde tufts of hair sticking out in odd directions. 

She straightens with a speed that makes her head spin.

Her and Alistair kept watch over Zevran for a long time, his weight settling against her side, arms and legs tangled with hers. Alistair propped himself up in the armchair with legs resting on the bed beside her. 

Their quiet conversation was overheard by nobody but the silent, looming walls of Eamon’s estate. 

Iraine doesn’t remember falling asleep.

Alistair must have eventually given up on stubbornly keeping watch from his perch in the armchair and occupied the space left on the far side of the bed, his face now tucked into Zevran’s chest. Zevran in turn curls around the parts of him within easy reach. 

Before she can even begin wrapping her mind around the scene; soft and sort of unreal in the weak light, Zevran turns around and opens his eyes with some reluctance.

The expression on his face rapidly changes from confusion to baffled surprise, then settles on a wince. He shuts his eyes again. 

“Not a dream then,” he groans. 

Iraine reaches for the jug of water Alistair must have set on the bedside table before crawling to bed and Zevran gratefully inhales at least half of it in one go. 

“Elfroot?” he asks, eyebrows furrowed. 

“Judging by last night’s performance, you’re likely having an abysmal time of it right now,” she replies patiently. “It will help.”

Zevran takes another sip and the ragged look on his face visibly smoothes as the mixture starts wrangling his alcohol abused body back in working order. Once his attention ceases to be entirely taken up by his sore head, he casts a calculating look over his shoulder. 

When he decides to speak, his tone is carefully measured. 

“What happened?”

Iraine recognises uncertain ground when she sees it. If the Circle has taught her anything, it is to know how to bide her time; never to be first but not the last one either, always one step in the shadow, watching, waiting. Testing the waters. Keeping safe.

Not for the first time in her life, she wishes she had it in her to be more courageous.

She looks at Alistair attempting to disappear into Zevran’s shoulder in his sleep and heaves a deep sigh. 

_ I love you. _

“Nothing,” she says. Pain shoots through her arms as she stretches them experimentally. 

“Nothing?”

“Nothing. One of Eamon’s men found us to report your return, we helped you to bed. We—we fully intended to leave you to your rest, but—” she trails off.  

Zevran lets his head fall back on the pillow with a thump. 

“I see.”

Everything about him radiates—defeat. 

“Have I made a complete fool of myself?” he asks, eyes still tightly shut. Iraine leans back against the headboard with some difficulty. 

“No. Not at all.”

They fall into silence. Zevran takes slow sips of elfroot infused water and Iraine spends some time stretching her body in small, slow movements—her joints complain and pull, the hairline thin pathways of magic inside her still echoing the burn of yesterday. It’s bad, but not nearly as bad as it could have been, she decides. 

Zevran blinks up at her, expression thoughtful. 

“Why did you  _ stay _ ?” 

“You asked,” Iraine replies simply. 

“Is it that simple?” he asks, eyebrows pulling down in disbelief. 

“It can be.” 

Zevran stares. There is no other word for it—his golden eyes are trained on her, unwavering and sharp, face pulled into a puzzled frown. 

“What are you doing, my dear Warden?” he asks, “Is this some elaborate scheme to get me in your bed? Seek excitement? Under any other circumstances I would not object, but—” his unexpected smile is dark and brittle. He drags a hand through his hair in exasperation and mutters, largely to himself: “Oh, all hells. What am  _ I  _ doing? I should savour this while it lasts.”

The lump that suddenly crawls up Iraine’s throat leaves her wordless, choking on a breath.  _ Blast it.  _ “No, Zev, I—”

She is saved from having to scramble for something, an explanation,  _ anything,  _ by a soft noise of discontent coming from the direction of Zevran’s elbow.

Alistair. 

He emerges sleep-rumpled and flushed from under the blanket, eyes squinting in protest against the unholy hour.

“We got it backwards again, haven’t we?” he muses, rubbing his eyes, but his voice is even. He must have been awake for a while. “Here’s the thing,” he continues with a rueful smile and her heart pangs at the sight of it, “I doubt either of us would rather be anywhere _else_ right now. For one because we were worried about you.” He looks up at the ceiling as if expecting it to cave in any minute. “And there is of course the whole…”

There’s a pause. Alistair’s face contorts in painful embarrassment. “Maker,” he mutters, “I do so hate love confessions.” 

Zevran’s eyes suddenly snap open, muscles clenching in anticipation of—what? He looks like someone expecting a blow. Iraine’s cheeks are flaming. 

“Because this is— _ that _ ,” Alistair clarifies, still staring upwards with an intensity that could crumble stone, “unless Iraine objects. Do you—do you object?” 

Two pairs of warm eyes settle on her. She feels every individual heartbeat as the fall of hammers against her ribcage. 

“N—no.” 

“Well then!” Alistair straightens with persistent cheer, expression somewhat wild, “Now that that’s settled, I believe it’s better if we leave you to sleep off that hangover I’m sure you’re having right now. Must be a terrible time. Iraine?” 

She attempts to preserve some semblance of composure as she moves to scramble out of bed.  _ Blast it, blast it, blast it _ . They need to talk it all through, it cannot be left just like  _ this,  _ hanging in the air between them with so much unsaid, unfinished—but she cannot think of a single thing to say as Alistair grabs her by the wrist with a shaking hand and pulls her towards the door. Her knees protest vehemently against the sudden weight dropping on them.  

How did the entire situation get out of hand so fast? What the  _ hell  _ are they going to—

“Wait!”

They freeze. What a tableau, Iraine thinks with a sense of vaguely frantic amusement. 

Zevran is half out of bed himself, expression—for once—stripped of guarded smirks, teasing and undertones of sadness and shame to give way to an open-jawed look of utter bewilderment. 

“ _Love confession?_ ” he asks. They stare at each other. 

“It wasn’t my best moment, I admit,” Alistair mutters and Iraine briefly entertains the idea of banging her head against something solid.

Looking at Zevran, one foot on the floor and the other still under the blanket, bare torso covered in bruises and cuts nobody thought to heal for him after his hasty exit and unexpected reappearance; the weight of the previous day suddenly penetrates the fog of overwhelmed disorientation in her mind and its full meaning settles on her, all at once. 

“I’m sorry,” she says quietly, “this is really terrible timing with what happened yesterday, and it’s—we shouldn’t have assumed. I should—I’m so terribly sorry.”

“What happened  _ yesterday? _ ” Zevran sounds incredulous. 

Iraine thinks her legs might give out under her unless she can sit down soon. She grits her teeth against the pain of it.

“You—we didn’t talk about it. Taliesen. You have  _ nightmares  _ about him. His death caused you pain and I—” 

Zevran sits with his back straight, hands clutched tight in the blanket still wrapped around his waist. He doesn’t interrupt. Alistair’s grip tightens on her wrist—in distress? In encouragement? It’s so hard to tell.

“I murdered somebody important to you,” she continues, “I hope you will forgive me for it, one day.”

She shuts her eyes. Maybe if she can't see, the room will eventually stop swimming around her and in a minute, she can turn around and leave; shut herself in her quarters and breathe through the nausea that seems almost a permanent feature of her body now.

Zevran huffs a breath.  

“My dear Warden,” he says, “how could you ever think what happened yesterday would make me question my loyalty to you?” 

Iraine’s eyes snap open in disbelief. 

“He was your  _ friend. _ ”

“And I was ready to kill him for  _ you _ .”

Alistair stiffens behind her. It feels as if all the air is suddenly gone from the room—she staggers back, shoulders bumping into his. 

_ What did you expect,  _ some part of her asks dryly, while the rest of her wants to scream at Zevran in guilt and awful, awful anger.  _ How can you say something like that? _

Zevran leans back on his hands and examines the exact spot on the ceiling Alistair was busying himself with not five minutes ago. 

“Taliesen and I have a difficult history, and seeing him again dredged up a whole lot of unpleasant memories I would like to forget sooner rather than later,” he says slowly. “His death—it wasn't a choice. Not truly. The Crows do not want me back unless in the form of a corpse, and I do not wish to return to them regardless.”

His gaze flickers to them, then away again. 

“It’s complicated,” he adds. 

Relief and confusion war with anger inside her and she lets herself be steered to the abandoned armchair by Alistair’s strong and dependable hands. She is shaking, knees and hips burning with pain.  _ Keep it together,  _ she reprimands herself, but her thoughts could just as well be a swarm of bees—scattering, buzzing, impossible to follow.

_ Maker.  _

“I am not overly familiar with the concept of loyalty,” Zevran continues quietly, “The Crows and _faith,_ as you know, do not mesh very well. It requires a measure of trust which is, let’s just say, strongly discouraged if you want to survive until adulthood. And yet,” he trails off, eyes never leaving the ceiling, “You confuse me. You keep _giving_ without expecting anything in return. You—inspire _trust_. I am sure Alistair will agree.”

Alistair straightens, glances down at her, then away from both of them. His face flushes red. 

Iraine feels dizzy.

“Zevran, I’m not—”

“And that’s the thing, no?” he interrupts, turning a measuring gaze between the two of them, a mixture of calculation and longing, “Inspiration.  _ Loyalty.  _ The two of you—your love for each other, your unwavering purpose is—there was never a choice. There was never a possibility for me to return. I would stay no matter what. Even if,” he swallows and his fingers visibly tighten around the blanket he’s still gripping tight, “even if now that you made peace with each other, you will not—want me.”

Iraine thinks back to the frantic minutes after the battle—the burn of lyrium, the fatigue, Alistair’s arms warm all around her.

_ Oh.  _

“If you think I could hate either of you more than I love you, you are very much mistaken,” Zevran adds softly, eyes closed.

Time seems frozen, a moment hanging in freefall like a grain of sand suspended on a spiderweb. 

Alistair shatters the stillness with a sharp inhale. He laughs, deep and booming, almost doubling over before he grabs her around the waist and flings her with him as he pounces on Zevran; enveloping all of them in a warm tangle of bodies, rocking back and forth on the lumpy mattress. His arms are long enough to reach around her and Zevran with ease. 

It’s enough to make her forget about every joint in her body protesting the harsh treatment in unison. 

Her and Zevran share a look of bewildered amusement. His hands reach out, tentative—a brush of fingers against the shell of her ear, forehead against forehead leaning on Alistair’s broad chest, still shaking with laughter. Alistair squeezes them tight with enthusiasm. 

“Maker,” he sighs, voice shaking, “I thought my heart might stop before the end of today.” 

Zevran fidgets until he can look straight at him, brows furrowed with curious uncertainty. Alistair’s smile could light up the entire keep if he so wished. 

They kiss.

Iraine thinks she might spontaneously erupt in a cone of fire, burn to ash, never to be seen again. 

Alistair looks down at her, expression dazed. 

“See,” he says, breathless, “he is so much better at this than me.”

The laugh that bursts out of her surprises her the most. 

 

-

 

There is so few trees in Denerim, Iraine thinks, leaning her forehead against Zevran’s window. It’s dark outside, the sun having disappeared behind the rooftops a long time ago in a glorious blaze of reds and oranges the likes of which she’s never seen over the city before. In the diamond shaped panes of glass she sees herself—dark hair, dark eyes, dark skin in stark contrast against the sheet wrapped around her—and behind her a rare and peaceful scene: blond heads tucked close together and limbs tangled, brown and black and gold.

Her heart swells at the sight of it.

Iraine has a dream. It’s not a dream of great ambition, more of something that grows with a person from childhood until growing old and gray. There are trees in it, a wide sky, great black rocks lapped at by the ocean similar to those they saw once at the edge of the Waking Sea. There is a small house built of wood and white stone. A garden. It’s a place somebody tired of the movements of the world might use as refuge—sometime far in the future, maybe, after their work is done and their weapons finally laid to rest. 

It’s just enough for three people to live comfortably with room for old friends to visit. 

The dream isn’t there for tomorrow, or for the day after even. She turns to look at Alistair—the previous night they laid all that towers between them bare, the shape of a crown, the poison of fear and resentment. 

_ I will be King only if you stand by me. I don’t care how. I cannot do it without you. _

That much, she thinks, she can do. 

The image of that house on the coast is there as a promise for the years in between. 

She watches the reflection of her two lovers sleeping, content, mapping the exact shape of it in her imagination. Something to build with her own two hands, something to call  _ home.  _

Something that looks—against all odds—like peace. 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading <3 forever grateful for Dea and her unshakable support (which includes leaving ok hand emojis in the gdocs comments at the appropriate places—I love you)


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